[the before's. this is a 1928 radio...still works, but with some super scary ratted wiring. i just took out the heavy contraptions in the back (i kept it all, mom) and went to work sanding and painting it. did i mention my palm sander broke before this?? sanded by hand. ugh. i removed the partition board, which was a task and a half and filled the cut in from it w wood filler. i also took off the screen for the speaker. ]

do you see all of the grooves on this thing?? i dreaded painting this so much. i used KILZ oil based spray paint primer to get in all of the crazy little holes.

last night i was up til 1am hanging up photos and finishing wall paper to the upstairs room. i was on the phone w my mom through part of it and she said, "when you get to heaven, don't mention what you did to the radio to your dad". haha. my dad was a picker before picking was cool. back then, it was just known as 'hoarding'. ha. he kept everything...and while i wanted to keep this radio from him(it has my teeth marks on the front from when i was a toddler), i didn't want to have it in my house if it didn't have a purpose. now it has a purpose.

[excuse my mobile upload...i took more photos on my blackberry during the process to post straight to fb]

during the makeover.

i'm a big fan of the cartoon & books, 'charlie & lola'. i'll admit, the accents pull me in straight away, but i love the illustrations. i knew right away that i wanted to craft something with the same bright colors and with lots of different patterns mixed in.

photo frames were made from a starbucks coffee sleeve and two match boxes.

i don't sew, so all the fabrics put together for this house were hand stitched. i made sleeping beauty a new blanket out of an old dress of emily's.

my awesome niece, famie, talked me through photoshop and showed me how to make a collage of mini photos.

i will forever be thankful for that tutorial!!

the family photo frame is made from a party favor lid.

i'm not completely done with the bench. it will have a pillow on top, as well.

the reason i used emily's dress for this blanket was that the fabric that lined the dress inside had shrunk and was much shorter than the ruffled front. i cut apart the inside, cut off some of the ruffled front and stitched it to one piece of the inside material, then turned them to the back side and stitched the 3 pieces together. i seriously can't work a machine to save my life and hand stitching is kind of therapeutic, so i didn't mind.

[documenting aurora's hair length in case there's a recap of the hair cutting incident of 2010]

i picked out some of my favorite photos and glued them all onto their frames, hot glued the frames on the wall. i really wanted to velcro them on so that i could change them out, but the velcro made them stick off the wall too far.

the kitchen has a 'yum' sign(i didn't have the letters to do 'free food' like i wanted to), a cork board with more photos(the black & white shot is on the kid's bedroom wall) and has a twig for a curtain rod. :) the food/containers on the counter are all from scrapbook paper. i just cut the little things out and glued them on. i'm thankful to be an excellent paper cutter. :) i painted on the farm sink and there will be a dishwasher painted on the opposite bottom section. i don't care if the house is fake, everyone needs a dishwasher. :)

the living room has a fireplace, stockings, framed photo

and a christmas tree. a very glittery one, at that.

i haven't done any papering to the floor yet(that's a loose sheet), but it'll be done, too.

i cut the stockings out from em's old tights. they were her favorite and she was so sad she couldn't wear them again this year. i cut these from the top and made socks out of the remainder of the tights. she wears them all of the time now. :)

i also painted a gold mini frame pink, put some fireplace paper in it for a mat and placed em's 5 year photo with all of her 5 year old 'LOVES'. it's one of my favorite photos from our photo shoot last december. she'll be having a 6 year old shoot in 11 days! agh!!

i'm extremely cheap and always use what i already have lying around the house.

i won't lie and say this hasn't been time consuming, but it's been the best time consuming project to date. for the first time i'm glad that her dad will be gone[with the blasted navy]for christmas...it means we get to have christmas a week early and i don't have to wait 25 more days to show it to her!!! ;)

i also love ttv shots. this is a sad example, but close. since i only have a 50mm right now, it's a tad difficult to pull it off. instead, i just turned off the lights around me, held my old argus 75 at arms length and shot through it's lens with my canon xti. close enough. :)

can't wait to shoot some more holiday photos! now i just need snow....

old train tracks that are never used make the perfect spot for photos. :)

dina had it in her head that it would be okay for me to bring my kids along. i'm sure by the first 3 minutes, she realized that was a bad idea. it was nice to have my child helping porter down the rocky hill, though. :) that was pretty much the only help i received from them, though. at one point, aiden was running in front of me as i was snapping. ugh. my husband owes me big for not making him take aiden with him for military trainings. ; )

dina set up a picnic next to the tracks. in order to get her kids to cooperate, she may or may not have had them skip lunch that day....

this was the ONLY time my kids sat still. seriously.

though she didn't want "family" photos, we had to do one with dina and the kids.

and i had to include an awesome blooper shot.

just like that, everyone was in play mode. so that's just what we did.

do you see the colorful arrangement in the background?? dina had all of that prepared for this shoot. this is why we're friends. :) we decided at the last minute to swing by my house and grab my chairs, too. glad we did. love all of the colors!

Welcome from the Whyte House.

I'm Susie Whyte...mother of 2, a sailor's wife, fan of pacifiers and soccer. I feel very passionate about photographing lower income families, to fill the need for families that cannot afford photos. Memories are one thing that will never be scarce, even if money in the bank is.